


The Future Starts Slow

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:30:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6127711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon universe. It's Victoria's 22nd Birthday. Aaron and Robert are just mates, or at least trying to be. After initially rejecting the idea of attending Vic's birthday, his mind soon changes when he finds out Aaron is going, but is the struggle of being just friends too difficult to bear?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Future Starts Slow

**Author's Note:**

> All Robert's POV except one tiny section in italics which is Vic's POV.

“So what were you thinking then?” Adam says to Vic, but it’s a low level, uninteresting hum that Robert finds it’s pretty easy to tune out of and turn towards the opening credits of Grand Designs. Victoria is wittering on about her birthday and how she doesn’t want a big fuss like last year because of a reason Robert didn’t pay attention to. He’s been sat on the sofa since dinner, too lazy to drag himself upstairs to the box room that’s still unofficially his, and too bored to join in the conversation with Adam and Vic – who might as well be sixty by the way they spend their evenings all cosied up. That alone was usually enough to make him grump upstairs.

He’d almost suggested they head to the pub, but then he could picture the events that would follow like scenes of a movie playing out in his head. More isolation, more what ifs, more dwelling and regret and longing and hope and ultimately disappointment. And if they went and Aaron wasn’t around (which he could convince himself wasn’t the reason he wanted to go, but was) then that’d be even worse than staying at home. If Aaron was there, then the chances were Robert wouldn’t get much of a look-in in the whole conversation stakes because Adam and Victoria were just better at being friends with Aaron than he was. They’d had practise and they didn’t have form for saying the wrong thing and/or royally fucking up. It wasn’t like being friends with Aaron was difficult, there was just a complex lacquer to it, a series of hidden and invisible boundaries. Looks, gestures, words, topics of conversation – everything had to be so careful and cautious. It was a minefield. And Robert couldn’t hold down a friendship at the best of times, let alone a man he wanted more with. One he’d had more with and like everything else in his life, managed to ruin.

On TV Kevin McCloud is standing in a field doing a piece to camera and Victoria is weighing up her options for celebrating her birthday. Just a small gathering, Robert hears her say, maybe tea at Diane’s. Then she gets an idea and turns to Adam, pattering his arm with her hand and says: “Oh I know – what about bowling?”

Robert starts thinking up excuses and sits ready to tell them he can’t think of anything worse than a sweaty bowling alley at one of those concrete industrial parks where it’s always the same: casino, multiplex, bowling alley, Frankie and Benny’s and another kid-infested chain restaurant, when Kevin McCloud introduces tonight’s architects. They’re a gay couple from Monmouth. Robert knows if Adam hadn’t been sitting on the remote he would have changed the channel by now, needing to divert any attention away from the types of questions his sister might fall into asking any time she saw anything on TV related to sexuality.

It was bad enough the other morning when he’d been having a late breakfast and Victoria walked in during a call-in segment of This Morning. A viewer had asked for advice after finding out that her teenage son had gay magazines under his bed. Vic had stood with her hands on her hips looking between the TV and Robert, until he had pretended long enough to be engrossed in yesterday’s newspaper on the table in front of him and she left him alone. There wasn’t any point going through all this, not yet.

His shirt collar rubs against his neck. He can’t get up now and leave, he’d just be drawing attention to it, so he talks loudly, trying to drown out the TV.

“What do you want to go bowling for?” he says and out of the corner of his eye sees one of the men on TV, the shorter, darker haired one of the couple, smile at the taller with a knowing sort of smile, a _why-am-I-still-with-you_ sort of smile.

Everything he misses comes rushing back.

*

As far as Vic was concerned, Robert wasn’t going to the party. He’d made his feelings on dinner and bowling very clear. He guessed in the end it would just end up being a date for Adam and Vic. He hadn’t really thought much more about it, only that he’d have to get her a present pretty soon, but then he overheard her when he was in David’s shop picking up something for lunch. He hadn’t even noticed she was in there, nor Finn.

“Please say you’re still coming tomorrow night?” she says, latching herself onto Finn’s shoulders.

He looks at her with a fixed expression and then raises his hands to show her what he’s buying. “Do I look like I’m in the mood for a party?” He sounds extra nasal and looks like he’s buying every available cold and flu remedy David stocks.

Vic’s face crumples. “Please come,” she says. “And you never know, you might be feeling back to normal tomorrow!”

“Me mum’s had it, Dad took a week to get over it. I think I’m just going to curl up and die, Vic.”

“It’s only man flu,” Vic says, loading more packets of tablets into his hands. “A few of these and you’ll be fine!”

“I’m sorry, Vic-“

Her arms flail in the air. “Great!” she says. “So at this rate it’s just going to be me, Adam and Aaron. Some birthday.”

Robert feels Aaron’s name burn into his skin and his head ricochets back to the shelves he was looking at. His eyes scan the sandwich packets but he’s not reading them, it’s only one word over and over. Aaron Aaron Aaron.

“ _Please_ don’t tell me you were making it into some double date thing, because seriously –“

“I don’t think _that’s_ a good idea, do you?” she says and Robert doesn’t need to look up to know she’s started signalling over to him with her head.

Finn lowers his voice but not enough. “Are they actually…?”

Vic makes a noise and Robert can’t work out exactly what she means by it, whether it’s a confirmation or denial, but they’ve headed out of ear shot. By now there’s only one thing for it – he’s going to that party.  

*

The new shirt is enveloped by layers of tissue paper and as he unwraps it, a memory floods back to him as ripe as if it had happened yesterday, not a year ago – a lifetime ago.

He’d been stood at the mirror, buttoning up, regretting not cancelling the Yates meeting about machinery discount that he’d lined up for that afternoon. He guessed that if he was going to keep up pretences that he was looking after the business while they went to the coast, he should at least schedule a few meetings in. The plum-coloured tails of his shirt flapped over his boxer shorts and thighs and he was distracted by the thought that only moments ago, Aaron’s mouth had been there, licking great swerving trails. His attention was brought back into the room by the sight of Aaron looking at him in the mirror. He looked soft, pleasantly groggy, his hair thick and wavy – blissed and naked.

“What?” he said to Aaron, affection fluttering though his voice. Then more his usual style: “Seen something you like?” He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a bit sore and overexerted; Aaron was really making the most of having him all to himself.

Aaron stretched, pulling his arms up above his head. “Something like that, yeah,” he said. “I was just thinking that’s a nice shirt. For a change.” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes glittering.

Robert smirked. He didn’t tell Aaron that Chrissie had bought it for him at Christmas. They’d been avoiding mentioning her name all week even though they’d fucked surrounded by her things. He wasn’t going to spoil things by mentioning her if it meant Aaron might start sulking. So instead he’d skulked back to him in bed until the shirt was on the floor again, forgotten about.

Robert stands now with the new shirt in his hands remembering how good that week was when it was just the two of them, but replaying the memories empties him. In some ways he’s closer to Aaron than he’s ever been, even with this tight, tense thread of friendship but through his own fault the distance between what they are and what they were is unbearable.  

He dresses, pathetically twitchy afterwards, and bumps into Victoria in the corridor between their bedrooms. There’s a certain pride in seeing her dressed up and beautiful and he feels a pang in his chest that he’s lucky to be back here, with someone as kind-hearted as her as his sister. To stop them crashing into each other entirely, he steadies her, hands on her elbows.

She clocks his outfit, sniffs at his aftershave. “Are you really going to a meeting like that?” she says, eyes sparkling and having that knowing quality only a sister can.

“About that,” he says. “Change of plan.” He waits for her to raise an eyebrow, to hear his explanation. “I’m coming with you tonight.”

“I thought you were busy.”

“Well I got out of it,” he says and gestures as if she’s meant to be surprised or grateful at his sudden change of heart. “I couldn’t really miss my little sister’s birthday now, could I?”

There’s a noise downstairs, a crash of the front door and Adam’s voice loud and cheerful. Aaron’s arrived. Robert pretends he hasn’t heard, hasn’t let that deep and familiar voice melt into him. Victoria steps back and folds her arms across her body.

“So, you changing your mind is nothing to do with a certain person coming tonight,” she says, nodding her head in the direction of downstairs.

“No. No, why would it? I didn’t even know you’d invited him.”

She twists her mouth in at one side and hums – disbelief probably – before giving him a look which is more their mother than anyone else. It’s a warning look that says: don’t ruin my night, don’t ruin his night, don’t ruin this for everyone. And she walks away, back to her room, leaving Robert wondering why he’s always the one people feel they have to lecture.

He slinks downstairs, hears his coins and keys jangling in his jean pocket and reaches the bottom with this strange flittering sensation in his chest. He can hear the low rumble of Aaron’s voice in the next room, a dry commentary to Adam’s anecdote, and feels himself split into two Roberts. The Robert that would dive straight into the room ready to belittle both men and assert his position in the group as alpha male. Or the Robert that crawls away inside of him sometimes, the one who feels uneasy competing for Aaron’s attention when the archetype of a real friend is always around. And that’s all they are these days – friends – the line has been set and he has to live with it. That’s all he can be, a friend.

He takes the third, unorthodox approach in the end and stands in the doorway of the living room, looking straight at him and ignoring the ignition inside. “Alright?” he says and then, forces his gaze away and speaks to Adam, the room. “I was gonna get a beer – you two want one?”

*

In the end Robert takes his own car, fearing that he won’t be able to last the whole night in the midst of the happy trio and is parked up and waiting outside the bowling alley before the rest of them arrive. He stands, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, resting against the car and watching families troop in and out of the complex, hoping they won’t end up stuck in the lane next to a gang of hormonal teenagers.

He sees Aaron approaching, slightly ahead of Adam and Vic, cast in a yellowish light that’s spilling out of the cinema entrance. It’s not that he ever wears much else other than black – hoodies, jeans and jackets – but he looks good. Better than good. Robert likes that he can watch him, unnoticed, without having to pretend he’s not. It gives him new energy. Aaron’s looked freer lately, lighter. Shoulders slightly sloping, head a little higher. Unknotted. The same dark, handsome features, the same subtle smile, the same eyes Robert could just die in. He must feel Robert’s gaze on him because he starts a little and then bites back on a smile, looking down.

“It’s rude to stare, you know,” he says, in that gruff and teasing way only Aaron can, and mirrors Robert’s pose – hands in pockets – in front of him.

“I know,” Robert says, his head dipping and raising again.

“Come on you lot!” Vic says, dragging Adam along by the arm. “It’s freezing.”

Robert’s surprised to find that he’s the only one who has to change his shoes when they pay for their games at the counter. The last time he went bowling (he can’t remember when, but there was probably a girl involved) handing your shoes over was a rite of passage, part of the hell of bowling, along with the grime of other people’s fingers on the bowling balls. But tonight the adolescent serving – no older than seventeen – gives all their feet a quick scan and decides it’s only Robert, in his leather Hugo Boss shoes, that needs to change his. Robert only realises now that the rest of them opted to wear trainers.

“Unlucky, mate,” Adam says, oozing with Schadenfreude. Robert reluctantly hands over his shoes and tells the guy behind the counter he’s a size eleven and hears Adam scoff, _sure you are, mate_ before he sits and unlaces the red and blue shoes that have seen thousands of other feet. Another time, another mood, he’d have turned to him and said smugly: _ask Aaron_.

Once they get to the lane, Robert sees that they’re penned in by two groups of teens, seemingly in competition despite there being a lane between them and he lets the others get settled, set up the scoring monitor, choose their bowling balls, while he heads to the bar.

“Drinks?”

Victoria “um”s and “ah”s between wine and her traditional bowling beverage: a blue Slush Puppy, until Robert suggests she comes with him and give him a hand with the drinks.

“No, I’m doing the machine,” she says, typing in her name, and then with all the subtlety of a brick adds: “Aaron can go with you.”   

*

_“You know,” - Adam says, sliding into the seat next to her after watching Aaron give a little shrugging agreement and then walk with Robert to the bar – “you could try and be a little less obvious about it.”_

_“About what?” Vic says, not removing her gaze from the keypad. Why is bowling so nineties in its technology? She doesn’t press the keys fast enough and Robert becomes Rocert, so she deletes it and starts again._

_“You know what! You trying to set them up.”_

_Victoria follows his gaze and sees the two of them standing together waiting to be served. They’re not touching, but she feels it, sees it between them. It’s a kind of energy, a bubble. They’re glancing at each other from the side and Robert has this delicate, sort of sheepish smile and it’s frighteningly genuine. He hasn’t even noticed that the bar man is waiting for him to speak and give his order._

_“I haven’t done anything,” Vic says, turning back around. “He wasn’t even gonna come until he knew Aaron was.”_

_“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Adam says. “It’s all about games with him.”_

_Victoria sighs and shoves him on the arm. “You might not want to see it, because you can’t stand the sight of him, but he actually loves Aaron. Like, completely, no games, no agenda loves him.”_

_“Fine. And all I’m saying is leave it alone. If they want to get back together they don’t need you playing cupid in the middle of it.”_

_“What has Aaron said?” Vic says taking another sneaky look behind her at the two of them. Aaron is shaking his head at Robert, but at least it looks fond from where she’s sitting._

_“It’s Aaron. He doesn’t tell me any of that stuff. Plus,” – he says, leaning in close, no doubt to tease her, fingers close to her ribs – “we’re not twelve. We’re a bit too old for ‘my mate fancies your mate’ aren’t we?”_

_She bats him away. “Shush! They’re coming back.”_

*

“So whose idea was the bowling?” Aaron asks, leaning against the bar.

Robert raises his palm. “I can categorically say: not mine.”

There’s a dip of lightness in his belly when he sees that his words have made Aaron smile, if only for a fraction of a second. When Vic had suggested Aaron help him with the drinks he was ready for Aaron to refuse or for Adam to spoil the moment and offer instead, but neither happened. He watches Aaron have a quick look behind him to the lanes and the rhythmic smashing of pins against the back wall.

Robert follows his gaze and sees Vic and Adam huddled together. “Well I think we can safely say we’re the topic of conversation,” Robert says.

“You think?” Aaron says sarcastically.

“You know Vic, nothing better to do than talk about me.”

“Well, if you keep giving her material…”

Robert looks at him and smiles; he can feel his face creasing. He’s jolted back to attention by the appearance of the man behind the bar, who takes their order and slopes away again.

“So,” Aaron says. “What do you reckon to your chances?”

“I’m playing to win. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Aaron says and then looks down, shaking his head.

“Like you expected anything else,” Robert says and he can hear himself, the quality of his voice, and he wants to regret it, to turn the temperature down, but he can’t.

“I wasn’t asking, if you’re playing to win. I was asking if you think you’re _gonna_ win.”

“Oh,” Robert says, playfully smug and nodding. “I’m definitely going to win.”

“Yeah? You sure about that?”

“Looking at my competition? Yeah, yeah I’m sure.”

Aaron raises his brow. “You’re all mouth.”

“Yeah,” Robert says, as the barman returns with their drinks. “It’s been said.”

*

The sides go up when it’s Victoria’s turn and Robert finds he slips into the gentle mocking of her alongside Aaron and Adam with ease. He feels like their friend for once, part of the group. She’s hopeless but that’s part of the fun. Five pins for her gives her the same feeling as a strike but after two rounds of only knocking down three, she’s developed a cute sulking pout and Robert puts his arm around her.

He sits forward in the seat closest to the lane and swigs from his bottle of beer, watching Aaron choose his bowling ball and then position himself and throw it in one smooth motion. The pins crash and with it comes the peak of adrenaline – it’s not a strike but it’s nine pins down in one go. Adam is cheering: _Get in!_ , whooping and he’s left clapping, making searing eye contact as Aaron waits for the ball to return. He raises his bottle up and Aaron clinks it with a nod that leaves Robert devoid of any smart marks he was going to make. His skin burns and burns.

“Nice shot,” he says eventually and swoops his head away when he realises he’s been making eye contact longer than a friend should.

Adam, oblivious as ever, muscles in and stands to the side of Aaron, trying to advise him where best to aim to nail that final pin. Robert can’t resist a dig.

“What are you, bowling World Champion all of a sudden?” 

Aaron’s already stepped forward to take his shot.

“I’m sorry mate, how many strikes and spares have you got?” They both know the answer to this but Adam makes a point of leaning back to look at the monitor. “Oh that’s right – a big fat zero.”

The ball thumps against the back and Aaron gets the spare. Robert’s applause feels hollow as Aaron and Adam bump chests and whatever it is that they do which he finds himself looking away from. It’s Robert’s turn next and he stands and picks up the ball he’s unofficially claimed as his, playing his first shot while the rest of them are caught up in Aaron’s celebrations. He gets a seven and it’s not adrenaline pumping through him now but something much darker. That mood alone should have been enough to win a strike. He finishes off his beer in one solid gulp and stands braced at the machine waiting for the return of his ball.  

Adam’s noisy celebrations have died down now and Robert feels Aaron linger and select another ball from the pack. “Give this one a go,” Aaron says to him. “It’s heavier.”

“I’m fine,” Robert says and then regrets the tone of it as soon as it’s left his mouth. Aaron puts the ball back and re-joins Adam on the seats behind the monitor and Robert throws his waste of space ball. It swerves, missing all three pins and he’s left with a pathetic seven, with a running total almost as pitiful as Victoria’s.

*

If the others think he’s sulking because he’s coming third then they’re wrong. But the mood has cemented now and trying to get out of it would just seem false, so he keeps mostly quiet. Three against one – that’s what it feels like, that’s why he didn’t want to come. When it’s his turn again, he chooses the ball Aaron picked out for him, the one he rejected before, and sees Aaron watching on, even if his face is partly obscured by his beer bottle.

The ball wobbles at first. Robert holds his breath, hands braced on his legs as he wills the ball to continue the path it’s on. It’s steady, direct, aiming straight for the centre pin. He can’t look and then, then it hits. He can’t see at first. Pins are splayed, he’s not sure, it’s not immediately obvious. Then he breathes and sees it. STRIKE!

Robert slaps an awkward high five with his sister and smiles, struggling against the pull he feels towards Aaron. To look at him, to touch him.

“Thanks for the tip,” Robert says to him, swallowing hard after Aaron has raised his head in recognition of the success.

“Don’t mention it.” Aaron’s gaze sticks around longer than he has stared before.

As Robert goes to return the ball to the rack, an older teenage girl stand there as if she’s waiting to the use the ball he just won a strike with. She smiles at him in that coy lip-glossed way that girls do when they’re trying to appear older, flirtatious.

“Is it a lucky one?” she says, lowering her head at him.

“Worked for me,” Robert says, shrugging but amused to see her struggle to lift it. “Try a lighter one first.”

She concedes, thanking him and flicking her hair over her shoulder before trying to lift another. When Robert returns to the seating area, Adam and Aaron’s eyes travel from the girl back to Robert. Adam smirks.

“Hey, Robert. She’ll be getting you to give her lessons next!” Adam winks and Robert notices the way Aaron elbows him to get him to shut up. The girl keeps looking over at him and then back to her group of friends.

“Looking at your recent performance, if anyone needs lessons it’s you,” Robert says, before he offers to get another round in. 

“Birthday shots?” Victoria says.

“I’m driving,” Robert says and nods at Adam. “And so’s he. So unless you and Aaron are planning on getting wasted together?”

“I’m game if you are,” Aaron says to Vic, rising to his feet and giving her a wink.

Robert feels like he’s imagined it, but for a second, Aaron’s hand touches his arm and he moves his head to the side, looking straight into Robert’s eyes. “I’ll come with ya,” he says, looking towards the bar.

“So,” Aaron says when they’re at the bar. There’s no queue again and they both lean against its sticky surface. Aaron has this look to him as he folds him arms across his body and presses his weight on his elbows. It’s not a look most people would recognise as a smile, but Robert looks at him from the side and at this angle, his expression is slanted and familiar, enough for Robert to know, Aaron was concealing a bigger smile. “You’re not bad at bowling when you’ve stopped sulking.”

“Wasn’t sulking,” Robert says, angling his body so he’s half-facing Aaron. He pushes his hand into his pocket.

“Sure,” Aaron says and his mouth pulls a little wider. The barman wanders over and Aaron orders, saying to Robert: “I’ll get these.” It’s there again, the touch on the arm and it feels like it’s burned, right through to the bone. Robert’s thoughts tumble into memory and fantasy, fleeting and scattered daydreams of what it would be like to touch him again, to properly feel his weight and skin and heat. For longer than a brief and casual moment.

A silence ebbs out between them and they’re left with a chorus of arcade game machines and a click-click rhythm of two guys playing on an air hockey table. Aaron scratches the marked surface of the bar with his thumb nail as the bartender readies their drinks.

“Did you really ever think we’d be _bowling_ together?” Aaron asks, his voice sounding delicate and out of place.

Robert’s laugh comes out as a rush of air through his nose and a smile. He concedes how surreal it is with a sway of his head to the side. “No,” he says and sees Aaron look up at him with large, soul-warming eyes. How did he spend so long denying himself the look of those eyes? What was wrong with him – to push it away, to pretend it didn’t matter?

Aaron shifts suddenly and Robert realises there’s a slim figure to his side, a breeze of sugary perfume. Aaron straightens up and stiffens, turning away so Robert’s forced to look at the person next to him. It’s the girl from before, from the lane next to theirs.

“Hi,” she says, not short on confidence.

Robert glances warily at Aaron and then back to her. “Hi…”

“Are you buying drinks?” she says, pushing up on the bar so it gives her more of a cleavage.

“He is,” Robert says, nodding at Aaron.

She looks over at him, a quick up and down and then her gaze moves back to Robert. “Oh,” she says. “You could buy me a drink.”

Robert grins. “And you’re how old?”

“Practically eighteen,” she says. “Three weeks to go.”

“Well then,” Robert says. “Ask me again in three weeks.”

“Are you going to be here in three weeks?” she says, eyebrows lifted and resisting the way Robert turns away by putting her hand on his forearm.

“No,” he says.

“Where will you be?”

Robert hears Aaron snort a little by his side. “Somewhere else,” he says.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she says, pushing again, leaning into him.

“No.”

“So you’re not seeing anyone?”

He knows it doesn’t happen, but Robert feels a crackle the size of a tectonic plate-shift. The sleeve of Aaron’s hoodie, black and pulled way past his wrist, brushes against him, lifts the blond hairs exposed by his rolled up shirt sleeve. What can he say? He feels it inside, that longing, that painful dragging ache that won’t leave him alone, however futile.

His pause is surely long enough for her to realise that this isn’t a one-word answer response. His head has dropped slightly and the charm slides back on, the mask of good grace appears. “I’m flattered,” he says. “Thanks. But you’re not my type and - I’m not into school kids.” Perhaps being cruel to be kind was the best option, judging by her reaction to his final comment. Her mouth drops and a scowl appears.

“Whatever,” she says, flicking her back to him and marching off back to her friends. He can hear her in the distance telling her mates that he’s _probably gay or something_.

“Nice,” Aaron says dryly, after she’s left. “I’m glad you let her down gently.”

“What was I meant to say?” Robert says, chest puffed out defensively. Their eyes meet. He reads it in the blue of Aaron’s irises – what he was meant to say.

*

By the time they get to the burger place, Vic has already had more to drink than the rest of them put together, but when they sit down to order she orders a milkshake and a glass of wine.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea, babe?” Adam says, having the guts to say it to her once the waiter had moved onto the next table after bringing their drinks to them.

“It’s my birthday,” she says at a volume that makes another group look over. “And I lost both games of bowling. Both!”

“She’ll be alright when she’s got some food down her,” Aaron says, raising his beer bottle at her in a shared camaraderie.

“Exactly!” She picks up both of her drinks and chimes them against his bottle.

“You’re a bad influence on my sister,” Robert says, hearing the flirtation crawl into his voice. He doesn’t mean for it to happen, but when his leg stretches and his knee touches Aaron’s, it doesn’t feel accidental.

“You’re only twenty-two once,” Aaron says. “But it’s probably too long ago for you to remember, eh?” This time it’s Aaron’s knee that touches his. It starts a fire which Robert hopes won’t spread. He can’t let it.

When the food arrives, Robert dives straight into his sweet potato fries, licking salt from his fingers.

“Good?” Vic asks, although she’s not even touched any of hers.

“Yeah,” Robert says. “Pretty good. I had these amazing ones somewhere before but I can’t-“

“Bradford,” Aaron says, reaching across the table for the ketchup. “You got them free because you kept banging on about how good they were.”

“Bradford,” he repeats, struck by a quick fire of fragmented images. Pulling over in a layby just to get his mouth on him. Thunder and lightning crackling over the motorway. A bar. A recommendation from the barman. A burger place. Sweet potato fries. Paying up and rattling the car keys in his hand because he couldn’t wait any longer for the hotel. Aaron. On the bed. Undressing. On top. Underneath. Aaron. Hand over his face. Fingers in his mouth. Aaron, Aaron. Mouths and hands. Aaron. Bedsheets and condoms and cum. Lights on and knees, fists in the mattress. Shower gel and suds and sleep and sorry, silent goodbyes.

Aaron holds his gaze as if they’re watching the movie of that night play out in each other’s pupils. Adam looks like he’s lost the thread of conversation and leans over Robert for an onion ring and Vic looks at her plate with a drowsy sway.

*

“I’m gonna take her home,” Adam says, when Vic emerges from the toilets, ashen faced and her make up smudged. Milkshake, booze, slush puppies – not a great combination.

She’s too ill to start getting upset about having ruined her birthday and Robert guesses that disappointment will arrive in the morning. He offers to drive her home, even if the thought of Aaron and Adam on a boys’ night out fills him with envy, but Adam insists.

“You two stay,” he says, seemingly overlooking the thud of tension already between them.

“D’you fancy going for another drink?” Robert asks, seeing his hand twitch and flatten on the table. His eyes just about meet Aaron’s face.

“I thought you were driving?” Aaron says in a way only Robert would know was teasing.

“I am, doesn’t stop us from having a drink. I’ll have water.”

“Alright then.”

They find somewhere outside of the leisure complex to have a drink, after driving for a little while with the radio on low. The bar’s packed but amongst the crush they manage to scope out a table at the back, although it becomes clear pretty quickly why it’s free – it’s by a set of doors that the smokers escape to and every time the door opens, they let in a wintery blast of air. They both keep their jackets on, grumbling every time someone lets in the cold.

“So on a scale of one to ten, I think we can safely say Vic’s birthday was a roaring sucsess.”

“I dunno,” Aaron says. “It wasn’t all bad. I got to thrash you at bowling, for one.”

“By ten points. Yeah, what a thrashing you gave me.”

Aaron rests his pint down and thumbs the foam away from his top lip. “I’ve got a confession to make actually. I played badly on purpose in the second game so you’d look better.” His mouth curves and he has to bite down on the grin that’s unmasking itself.

“You won’t be so smug next time. I’ll make sure of it.”

“You’re taking me bowling, are you?” Aaron says and they both smirk downwards, realising the implication – the big flashing ‘date’ word - that appears in front of them like headlights.

Robert’s soft and quiet for a moment. “Losing and my sister vomiting aside, I had a good night.”

“Yeah,” Aaron says. “Me too.”

*

They’re on the winding, thickly shrubbed lanes on the way back to the village, where the fields and potholes outnumber cars on the road, when the car breaks down. Aaron frowns at him and Robert looks helplessly at the steering wheel pleading his innocence, as the vehicle chugs and churns and he’s forced to swerve it down a tractor track with the hazards on.

“What happened?” Aaron says, unbuckling his seatbelt.

“I dunno, it just –” Robert says, checking his phone for signal but knowing they’re in a dead zone.

Aaron pushes the door open. “Come on, I’ll take a look.”

Together they lean over the bonnet, Aaron peering in and Robert directing the torchlight of his phone onto the engine and feeling the mist of spitting rain on the back of his neck.

“I’m just waiting to get struck by lightning,” Robert says. “To really finish off the night.”

“Could be worse,” Aaron says. “You could be at home with Vic, cleaning up her sick.” Aaron strains over the engine and reconnects a lose wire. “Just needs cooling down, then we’ll restart it.” Aaron says and they perch on the tail end of the car, sitting beside each other.

Their little fingers touch, with a graze that seems accidental at first but then they relax and just allow themselves to touch, not shifting, not jerking away from each other with an apologetic denial. A frustration grits inside Robert. He hates being friends. He hates the barriers and the borders, the limits of what he can say, how close he’s allowed to get.

“I’m glad Adam took her home,” Robert says, his free hand leaning against his knee.

“I’m glad you came tonight.”

“Even if I’m a sore loser.”

“Even then.”

Robert turned his face towards Aaron, saw the silvery moonlight cast across his features. He moved his hand so that two of his fingers overlapped Aaron’s. “I only came because of you,” he says. A breath shakes from him and he sucks it back in, his courage slipping away from him. “I love you, Aaron.”

There’s no sound around them, no distant cars or people just the empty air of the country, leaving them too much time to breathe, too much time to think. Robert knows he’s not meant to say it, that they’re friends only, that Aaron doesn’t deserve the pain and anguish that Robert’s affections bring him, but it’s killing him to say nothing. He realises all too late that he’s ruined it again, pushed too far too fast. Aaron’s said nothing. He hasn’t even moved. It’s been over a year since he told Aaron how he felt, blood pounding in his head as he leaned close to him on the stairs of the pub.

Robert can’t stand the silence any longer. He rises to his feet, running a hand back through his hair. “I’m sorry just…” He begins walking away from the car, back onto the main lane the car began stuttering on. He doesn’t know where he’s going or how far he’s intending to walk, but his chest is stretched tighter. Suffocated.

“Robert wait!” Aaron calls. Robert hears footsteps behind him on the dirt track.

“Aaron, it’s fine.”

“No - it’s not,” Aaron says, pulling on the sleeve of Robert’s jacket until he’s slowed and they can finally stand face to face. The hazards are still on, beaming orange light on them in a rhythmic beat. Aaron still has a hold of his jacket, squeezing the life out of the material. He bunches it and then pushes it against Robert’s skin, looking at it and then at Robert’s face. There’s nothing in the world but the two of them. Aaron reaches up, both hands gripping his jacket. Robert wants to steady himself, place his hands around Aaron’s waist, melt into him like they’ve never been apart. But he can’t and he doesn’t.

“I love you too,” Aaron says. His breath is warm on Robert’s face. He can almost feel the pulse of his bottom lip. “And I’m done waiting. I’m done being mates. I want you. I want this.”

Aaron presses his mouth against him and it’s as if life has ended and begun at the same moment. Everything they were runs through him. Everything they could be sinks into the kiss. The bristles of Aaron’s stubble have grown long enough to be soft against his mouth and he’s missed everything about this. The way Aaron kisses, the pressure of him, the smell of him, the light and soft, the way his breathing tremors, the way his hands seek the contours of his chest and then settle on his shoulders. It’s everything. He’s everything.

Aaron parts from the kiss, looking up at him and smiles. The future opens up.

  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Sophie for helping me talk through ideas and being a general cheerleader. Thank you to everyone else who is always so enthusiastic and encouraging.


End file.
